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Those who suffer from paranoid-type schizophrenia are subject to imagining elaborate plots to do harm to them, may incorrectly believe they are under surveillance and are constantly being watched, and may be fearful of the government--believing that it has an agenda of "getting" them. People with paranoid schizophrenia may inflate their importance and may believe that numerous people are malevolently monitoring and plotting against them--when in fact, they may not be noticed nearly as much as they think.  

For example, yesterday I was driving in Martinez, and another driver who wasn't looking seemed as though determined to careen into the side of my vehicle. I steered clear of the vehicle but had initially believed he was intentionally trying to create a car accident. Sometimes such an assumption, ironically, is useful if you are dealing with idiot drivers who are texting or paying attention to their GPS.  

Medication isn't nearly one hundred percent effective at freeing psychotic people from delusions. Even while medicated, people with schizophrenia or a similar disorder need to go farther than just taking the pills prescribed. Delusions can be stubborn and hard to get rid of. 

Delusions appear as if they are facts to the minds of those who suffer from psychosis. If we are lucky, we may retain some amount of faculty that disputes these illusions of the mind. I have arrived at a number of cognitive methods that help me recognize my delusions (most of the time) while I continue to stay medicated.  

If someone's psychotic illness is fairly severe, he or she should have a multipronged approach to maintaining a mostly non-delusional state of mind. You need medication, you need counseling, and you need cognitive techniques. Delusions are like cancer to the mind's software--delusions spread easily and can take over--wiping out normal consciousness. Delusions can also be compared to a computer virus that takes over.  

My understanding of computer antivirus software is that it is designed to target items that the antivirus company has discovered--the definitions that come in your antivirus updates specifically address known and newly discovered viruses. In the mind of someone who suffers from delusions, specific delusions can be targeted in an analogous manner.  

In this manner, you can share specific thoughts with a counselor, and this counselor can reflect back to you whether or not the thought seems delusional. It is then up to you to use this information and to acknowledge that a particular thought could be a delusion.  

Much of the time I am able to recognize delusions on my own, since I have had a lot of practice. But on occasion, a deluded thought sneaks up on me and becomes implanted. Then it takes more work to recognize and reprogram a delusion that has begun to expand toward being a "delusional system."  

The mere conscious recognition of a delusion does a lot toward alleviating it because of how our minds automatically incorporate the ideas we discover.  

You are better off erring on the side of naiveté rather than paranoia. Excessive vigilance against a perceived threat is counterproductive, can flower into paranoia as well as combativeness, and can lead you down the path of getting more ill.  

If we can learn to be a bit less high-strung and not adopt drastic interpretations of difficult events, events that we need not take personally, we can calm down a bit, and this helps in numerous ways.